There are several drawbacks with the current commercially available ultraviolet (UV) filters used in sunscreen formulations, namely deleterious human and ecotoxic effects. As a result of the drawbacks, a current research interest is in identifying and designing new UV filters. One approach that has been explored in recent years is to use nature as inspiration, which is the focus of this review. Both plants and microorganisms have adapted to synthesize their own photoprotective molecules to guard their DNA from potentially harmful UV radiation. The relaxation mechanism of a molecule after it has been photoexcited can be unravelled by several techniques, the ones of most interest for this review being ultrafast spectroscopy and computational methods. Within the literature, both techniques have been implemented on plant-, and microbial-inspired UV filters to better understand their photoprotective roles in nature. This review aims to explore these findings for both families of nature-inspired UV filters in the hope of guiding the future design of sunscreens.

Given the negative impacts of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on humans, sunscreens have become a widely used product. Certain ingredients within sunscreens are responsible for photoprotection and these are known, collectively herein, as ultraviolet (UV) filters. Generally speaking, organic UV filters work by absorbing the potentially harmful UVR and dissipating this energy as harmless heat. This process happens on picosecond time scales and so femtosecond pump–probe spectroscopy (FPPS) is an ideal technique for tracking this energy conversion in real time. Coupling FPPS with complementary techniques, including steady-state spectroscopy and computational methods, can provide a detailed mechanistic picture of how UV filters provide photoprotection. As such, FPPS is crucial in aiding the future design of UV filters. This Perspective sheds light on the advancements made over the past two years on both approved and nature-inspired UV filters. Moreover, we suggest where FPPS can be further utilized within sunscreen applications for future considerations.

Avobenzone and octocrylene are popular sunscreen active ingredients. Experiments that probe the stability of avobenzone in binary mixtures with octocrylene are presented, together with the synthesis of a class of novel composite sunscreens that were designed by covalently linking avobenzone and octocrylene groups. Spectroscopy, both steady-state and time-resolved, of the fused molecules was performed to investigate the stability of the new molecules and their potential function as ultraviolet filters. Computational results are detailed for truncated versions of a subset of the molecules to reveal the energy states underlying the absorption processes of this new class of sunscreen. The results indicate that the combination of elements of the two sunscreen molecules into one molecule creates a derivative with good stability to UV light in ethanol and in which the main degradation pathway of the avobenzone component in acetonitrile is reduced. Derivatives containing p-chloro substituents are particularly stable to UV light.

In this work, different levels of quantum computational models such as MP2, ADC(2), CASSCF/CASPT2, and DFT/TD-DFT have been employed to investigate the photophysics and photostability of a mycosporine system, mycosporine glycine (MyG). First of all, a molecular mechanics approach based on the Monte Carlo conformational search has been employed to investigate the possible geometry structures of MyG. Then, comprehensive studies on the electronic excited states and deactivation mechanism have been conducted on the most stable conformer. The first optically bright electronic transition responsible for the UV absorption of MyG has been assigned as the S₂ (¹ππ*) owing to the large oscillator strength (0.450). The first excited electronic state (S₁) has been assigned as an optically dark (¹nπ*) state. From the nonadiabatic dynamics simulation model, we propose that the initial population in the S₂ (¹ππ*) state transfers to the S₁ state in under 100 fs, through an S₂/S₁ conical intersection (CI). The barrierless S₁ potential energy curves then drive the excited system to the S₁/S₀ CI. This latter CI provides a significant route for ultrafast deactivation of the system to the ground state via internal conversion.

Mycosporine glycine (MyG) was produced by the fermentation of a purposely engineered bacterial strain and isolated from this sustainable source. The ultrafast spectroscopy of MyG was then investigated in its native, zwitterionic form (MyG_zwitter), via femtosecond transient electronic absorption spectroscopy. Complementary nonadiabatic (NAD) simulations suggest that, upon photoexcitation to the lowest excited singlet state (S₁), MyG_zwitter undergoes efficient nonradiative decay to repopulate the electronic ground state (S₀). We propose an initial ultrafast ring-twisting mechanism toward an S₁/S₀ conical intersection, followed by internal conversion to S₀ and subsequent vibrational cooling. This study illuminates the workings of the archetype mycosporine, providing photoprotection, in the UV-B range, to organisms such as corals, macroalgae, and cyanobacteria. This study also contributes to our growing understanding of the photoprotection mechanisms of life.